


One Thousand And One Yellow Daffodils

by monkiainen



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Background Case, Domestic, Friendship, Gen, It's For a Case, Sherlock does idiotic things for solving a case, Why There Is No Tea Left?, accidental poisoning, daffodils
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 19:51:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3949540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monkiainen/pseuds/monkiainen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there are lot of daffodils, Sherlock poisons himself, and Greek tales are discussed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Thousand And One Yellow Daffodils

**Author's Note:**

  * For [time_converges](https://archiveofourown.org/users/time_converges/gifts).



After so many years of working together, Joan was accustomed to find strange things in the brownstone on occasion. That still didn’t explain the sheer amount of daffodils, however. Knowing Sherlock, they were somehow related to a case they were currently working with even if only Sherlock could see the connection.

“Care to explain why there are hundreds of daffodils in here?” Joan asked, having spotted Sherlock lying on the floor, still as a statue.

“One thousand and one yellow ones, to be exact. I’m trying to determine the best way to extract lycorine from daffodils, and how much one needs to ingest it for it to become lethal” Sherlock muttered from the floor, waving in the general direction of the said flowers.

“Wait… are you telling me you actually took lycorine yourself?” Joan asked, even if she knew the answer already. It would be typical for Sherlock to try a poison on himself without thinking the possible outcome.

“How else was I supposed to determine the difference between a deadly dose and highly irritating one? Don’t worry; I think I’ve found the solution already. Now I’m only curious to find out why our victim, Ota Zelasko, didn’t notice something was off in his food as the taste of lycorine is quite atrocious. Can you think of something that would mask the disgusting taste of lycorine?” Sherlock continued, seemingly not caring one bit about Joan’s concern. They both knew it was an act, but chose to pretend it wasn’t. At least Sherlock did, for emotions and social interactions had never been his forte. They were Joan’s specialty, and it would be better if things remained that way.

As Sherlock was wondering what could mask the taste of lycorine, Joan took a look at the ME’s report. Ah. Just as she had thought. 

“Did you read the ME’s report?” 

“Yes. What about it? There was nothing extraordinary on it, apart from the high concentration of lycorine in the victim’s system. Since the victim was involved in the body-building business, the amount of corticosteroids in his blood is to be expected. Steroid usage is not that rare after all” Sherlock lectured, still lying on the floor.

“Well, if you had bothered to look more closely, you would have noticed that Mr. Zelasko was recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis which is sometimes treated with intravenous corticosteroids. MS can sometimes cause the patient to experience ageusia, which is…”

“The loss of taste functions! That explains why the victim couldn’t taste the poison in his food before it was too late!” Sherlock exclaimed, getting up from the floor. Giving the fact he was still feeling the effects of lycorine in his system it may not have been the best idea. The room seemed to be spinning for some reason.

“I’ll call Marcus and let him know about our findings. You will, on the other hand, take it easy for the rest of day so the remaining poison has time to leave your system” Joan chided without any heat behind her words, guiding Sherlock to the sofa. “Take a nap, the case can wait for a few hours. Doctor’s orders.”

“But…”

“No buts” Joan pointed out, throwing a blanket on Sherlock. “I promise we continue with the case as soon as you’re feeling better. Now sleep.”

Sherlock muttered something under his breath that could be interpreted as protest, but miraculously did what he was told for once. It was a testimony on Sherlock’s current physical condition, because even he knew it would be futile to try and concentrate to the case on hand as long as the world felt like spinning. Thus, Sherlock did what Joan told him to do and took a nap.

While Sherlock was napping restlessly, Joan took the chance to get rid of the daffodils. Yes, they were pretty, but they didn’t really need one thousand and one of them in the already crammed brownstone. Besides the smell made her head ache, so yet another reason to remove the flowers from the premises.

Once she had the flower issue sorted, it was time for some household chores. Mainly, sorting the mail and separating the bills and such from the junk mail. It was tedious work, but Joan knew Sherlock wouldn’t be bothered to do it until their electricity was cut due to unpaid bills (it had happened in the past).

“What did you do with the daffodils?” Sherlock was still feeling a bit dizzy, but at least the nausea was gone. Perhaps he might dare to eat something now that he was in the kitchen. Did they have something edible in the house? Sherlock had no idea. At least there was tea. Yes, tea was good. No, wait. Why was the tea tin empty? Sherlock didn’t remember drinking all the tea.

“You’ve been out of tea since Friday. I though you said you were going to pick up some?”

Mundane, stupid things. He had better things to worry about than to remember to buy more tea. Was he really out of tea? Maybe he still had some hideous, generic teabags left in the cabinet.

“You already checked that cabinet yesterday. Tea doesn’t just magically appear, you know” Joan commented from the living room. How irritating.

The search for tea was soon forgotten, though, when Sherlock noticed the red skin on Joan’s hands.

“What happened to your hands?”

“Oh, it’s the daffodils. I should have worn gloves when I was handling them. It should go away soon though” Joan explained, resisting the urge to scratch her hands. They were feeling very itchy and sore.

Sherlock grabbed his coat, rushing out from the door. “Call Bell and ask him to meet us at the Taen Gym. I know who our killer is!”

A few hours later, they had the killer in the custody and the case was solved. Turned out one of Zelasko’s business partners, Brad Wunderink, had been harboring unrequited feelings against Mr. Zelasko for quite some time. Unfortunately for Wunderink, his feelings had not been returned, for Zelasko had been more interested in… well, his own looks to put it bluntly.

“Sounds like a modern version of the tale of Narcissus” Joan commented while they were observing the interrogation behind the two-way mirror. 

“Yes, I suppose that was Wunderink’s intentions to begin with. To poison a vain person with the extract from the flowers with a name describing vanity… yes, it was really to the point, one might agree. Are we still without tea?”

Some things will never change, Joan pondered, choosing not to comment. It’s was Sherlock’s turn to do the grocery shopping, anyway.


End file.
